Into The Fray
by Ceiz
Summary: Officers Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps respond to what seems like a routine call from headquarters. Organized criminals plan to take over Zootopia and drain the ZPD of it's morale, power, and status. Will Hopps and Wilde be able to bring down the criminals, or will they bite off more than they can chew?


"BEEP, BEEP, BEEP..."

Judy shot one arm out from underneath her blankets, waving her paw around desperately in an attempt to turn off that damned alarm clock that interrupted her slumber almost every morning. The side of her paw swiped against something hard, sending whatever it was barreling onto the floor. The resulting crash echoed throughout her tiny apartment, for sure waking up her neighbors and probably everybody else on her floor. She rose out of bed, picked up the still beeping alarm clock and shut it off. She placed it back on the nightstand next to her bed.

"Another day, another dollar.." she grumbed as she groggily threw on her ZPD uniform, making extra sure her badge was aligned right on her kevlar. In her mind, she couldn't be a true cop with a crooked badge. She glanced over at the clock, the digital display reading 6:03. "I still have about 30 minutes before I have to be at HQ," she thought to herself. The hare opened the pantry and dug out a bag of coffee grounds, which she quickly dumped into a filter and put it in the machine to brew. Her stomach growled, and she realized she hadn't eaten since last night's dinner. On quiet feet, she padded over to the fridge and opened it. What stared back at her was saddening to say the least. In the fridge, only a lone bottle of carrot juice and a tubberware halfway full of last night's leftovers stood. She groaned and hastily grabbed the half-eaten veggie burger and fries in the tubberware. After plating it and setting it in the microwave, she went over to the coffee machine to check the progress of her coffee. It was already fully brewed and piping hot. She cracked open a little packet of half and half milk and carefully spooned sugar into the Styrofoam cup, being wary to not get the white granules everywhere. She topped it off with a black lid and stuck a straw in the small mouth hole. The microwave beeped once and before it could let out another one, she was already swinging open the door and grabbing her food from within it. She made another glance at the clock. "6:15, time to leave." She grabbed her food and coffee and headed for the door.

"Let's make today worth waking up for." She told herself that everyday as a sort of motivation. She made one last mental check to make sure she had everything she needed than exited her apartment, making sure to lock the door behind her.

Her cruiser rumbled to life as she twisted the keys in the ignition. She'd already made it to the precinct on time and was already ready to start a day of patrols and call-responding with her partner. Speaking of, where was Nick? He was supposed to be at work at 7 sharp, it was 7:15. She decided it would be best if she gave him a call. She pulled out her iCarrot phone and dialed up the number she had memorized by heart.

Nick was awoken by a loud buzzing. Nick half-opened his eyes, the brightness of his now lighting up phone being the only source of light in the room. He knew this situation, he'd been in it countless times. "How bad is it.." he thought to himself while bringing the phone close to his face.

"7:20!?" A look of fear sprang across his face. Chief Bogo was surely going to have his tail for this. He had 6 missed calls from his partner. "Oh god, she probably thinks I'm dead or something." He unlocked his phone and called her back. She picked up within the first ring.

"You better have a good explanation for this one, fox"

"Carrots, you've heard my explanation a thousand times. You know the ghosts in my house love holding me down and prohibiting me to go to work."

Judy scoffed on the other end of the phone, obviously annoyed that Nick used that "explanation" again. "Yeah, yeah. Those ghosts sure do have their way of prohibiting our patrols, don't they? Look Slick, i'll lay it out for you real blunt. You've got 10 minutes to get yourself over here or I'm sending Chief to take you by force, sound good?"

Nick was already out the door before she could finish her rant. "I'll be there in 5" he replied, a wry smirk looming on his maw.

"See you in a minute, partner."

"Jet to Able, are you in position." a voice cracked on the walkie talkie.

"Roger, setting up the GM6 as we speak" a slender timberwolf replied over the short wave radio. He slid the long barrel of the high caliber rifle into place, screwing a suppressor over the end of it after he was done fastening it into place. "What's the ETA of the target, Trojan." A different voice responded over the radio. "According to the tracker, he's about 5 minutes out. Be ready we only have a slight window to work with."

He scoffed. "Understood, GM6 is almost up and live." He slid a 12x scope onto the top rail of the rifle. He looked back at the Zebra couple he had to tranq in order to gain uninterrupted access to the 10th floor apartment he sat in. They looked so peaceful, their artificial sleep accented by the brightly colored darts protruding out of their backs. He grinned and loaded a few armour-piercing rounds into the magazine that was in his hand. The black tips of the dubiously large cartridges gleamed as the sunlight hit them through the window. The target would be on his way soon. He aligned the threading of the mag into the magwell and rammed it home. He chambered a round, the heavy metal sound of the bolt being pulled was enough to send a rush of adrenaline throughout his whole body. The canine checked to see if the zeroing on his scope was correct, this was going to be a long shot. The target would be rounding a corner around 700 meters out, so any small miscalculations would result in a miss. He settled that he was dead on. A thump resonated throughout the abode as he set the bipod on the windowsill and brought the scope to his eye level. As if on cue, a particularly rushed fox turned onto the lonely street.

"Target in sight, shot is about to go out," the wolf spoke into the radio. He squeezed the trigger. Dust and gas flooded his vision as the rifle bucked backwards with incredible force. Through the scope, he watched the round sail through the air and embed itself into the engine bay of the bright red sedan. Sparks and smoke started throwing themselves from the engine block. The car swerved off the road onto the shoulder of the road.

"Go, go, go!" the wolf called out on the walkie talkie. He watched as a black van pulled up behind the sedan and 2 large mammals rushed out of the bushes, guns pointed into the cockpit of the vehicle. Several other mammals flooded out of the back of the van and opened the driver door of the now destroyed car. They ripped the dog out of the vehicle and one burly panda drove the butt of his rifle into the skull of the bewildered fox, knocking him out cold. They picked him up effortlessly and loaded him into the back of the van. A tiger now sat over the hood of the red sedan, strapping a shaped explosive charge to the front of it. The tires of the van silently began to smoke as they peeled off as fast as they can. The car burst into flames and a few seconds later, the sound of the explosion reached the apartment.

He stood up, content with his work, and began disassembling the rifle. He fitted each part of the rifle carefully into the suitcase and walked over to the still sleeping zebras. He grabbed the spent casing of the AP round and pulled the bright darts out of the backs of the mammals by the wolf to hide the evidence of his presence there. He reached onto his pocket and pulled out a small box. Reaching inside of the box, he produced a fine Zuban cigar, the end precut. Able stuck the end of the cigar into is mouth and lit it. He took a long drag from it and exhaled, the smoke lingering in the room. The wolf smiled. Everything was going to plan.

"'Bout time you decided to show up" Judy grinned as her partner hopped into the cruiser. "What's up lazy pants?"

"Pleasure to see you too, Officer Fluff" Nick shot a condescending glare his partner's way. "I thought you would be overjoyed to see your handsome partner again. Aren't you happy I convinced those ghosts to release me?" Nick winced as Judy slugged him in the arm. The steady hum of the engine turned into a moan as Judy pulled out of the precinct's parking lot.

"That was funny the first time you said it, now you're dragging it on" she retorted, still semi-annoyed by her partners dumb excuses... well, excuse. He'd used it countless times to explain his lateness, he even used it with Bogo once. That landed him in a meter maid jacket and the 3 wheeled, one seated joke machine for 2 weeks. He'd been the only officer she knew that could make that fluorescent jacket look good.

"Looks like i'm going to have to find another excuse, huh carrots?" Judy slammed on the gas pedal, the torque of the sudden movement throwing the fox into the backseat of the patrol car.

"Or you could just admit that you're awful at being on time," Judy said playfully as her partner struggled to get to his feet. "Dumb fox." Nick pretended to not hear the bunny's dig at him and climbed his way back into the front seat. "Put your seatbelt on, you're lucky the force was backwards and not forwards. I'd be having to scrape you off the sidewalk if we got into a wreck."

"What are you gonna do Judes, give me a ticket?" He looked over at the rabbit, who laughed

Their usual banter was interrupted as a familiar voice came over the speaker of the radio.

"Cruiser 116, this is dispatch, do you copy, over"

"Dispatch, this is 116, we read you clearly, what's up Claws?"

"There's been multiple reports of a 10-80, an explosion on Ridgewater Parkway. You two are the closest to it, can you respond?"

"Roger Doger, we're on it." Nick hung the mic back onto the radio unit as Judy flipped the switch for the lightbar and the siren. The lights on the cruiser lit up the buildings and alleyways surrounding them. They ripped through the streets of Zootopia like a bat out of hell, hitting speeds that if they were civilians, they would have easily been given a super speeder ticket. They pulled up to the scene, the blue and red lights mixing with the variety of colors from the ZFD truck and the ambulance that arrived as soon as they did. The mammals of the ZFD were dousing the blaze with water. Judy and Nick jumped out of their cruiser and numbly walked over to the scorched remains of the car.

Detective Wolford was already at the scene, jotting down notes in a memopad.

"What's the rundown, Detective," Judy asked.

"Come around to the front of the car." the duo obeyed and made their way to the front of the vehicle. Wolford pointed to a huge hole in the grille where the engine was. "It seems as if someone put a VERY large round into the engine of this car. As of right now, we're unsure if this caused the explosion or not. The vehicle is registered to a fox named 'Drew Foxman', but he's nowhere to be found. It's too early to suggest foul play, but that is probably what its going to come to." He pointed behind him to some tire marks embedded into the pavement. "Also there's large skid marks in the road over there. The width is too wide to be any old civilian car. It kind of looks like van tires don't you think?"

Nick examined the marks closely. They were very dark and extended quite a good bit before fading away. As Wolford had mentioned, the tires were very wide. "Yeah I don't know.. there's something fishy going on here." Nick mused as his partner was proding around in the car. She noticed his glare, and motioned with a finger for him to come over by her. "One sec Wolford, duty calls," Nick walked away from the detective who went back to photographing the tire marks. He leaned up against the now blackened door.

Judy looked disappointed. "There's nothing here. No hair. No prints. Nothing. Everything in the car has been burnt to a crisp. Even these books have been torched" She pointed to the pile of ash and soot laying on the floor. "who knows, anything could have happened to him. The jam cams don't even reach in this part of town so we can't even check those. We have absolutely no evidence besides this burnt hooptie and a few tire marks." She looked up from the floor to see a wide eyed Nick sniffing frantically with his muzzle in the air. His ears flattened to his head. "Nick?" she asked.

Nick didn't even hear her. He slowly walked away from the car and over to the shoulder of the road. The fox turned to Judy, his eyes wide with horror. Judy knew Nick had just found something, she was kind of afraid to know what. Against her judgement, she sluggishly made her way to the now kneeling fox.

"I thought I smelled something, metallic. I thought maybe it was something from the car, but I was very wrong.. take a look at this, Carrots."

Judy peeked over Nick's shoulder at a relatively small crimson stain in the dirt.

"Is that...blood?"

"Yeah," Nick turned to Judy, whose face bore the same look of horror that his did. "Wolford, you need to come look at this."


End file.
